The Rotaract Club Pavia won the Best European Service Project Award 2011 with the MapAbility Project. The award, assigned each year by the ERIC (European Rotaract Information Center) is selected by a dedicated jury among the best projects from 40 different countries.

The president’s speech (parts) Riccardo Dondi at the European Conference is transcribed here:

“It is an immensely gratifying honor to receive the Best European Service Project Award. I believe that even the smallest actions and the simplest services are to be recognized as great when we show that we are truly serving above self.

According to the European Union guidelines every city must have an accessibility strategy. Accessibility is defined in a broad sense meaning inclusion and equal rights for everyone. We do not talk about less abilities, we talk about different abilities, such as being on a wheelchair, being visually impaired, but also being able to care for children and old people in a proper way.

Inclusion is the keyword.

It is in this spirit that we decided to support the Mapability Project. Two years ago a lot of people told us that we would never be able to convince people to collect data for us. These people didnt’t know the Rotaract, these people didn’t know the spirit that is common to every Rotaractor. If we want together we can accomplish anything we can dream of.

And we will have ten cities or even more mapped by the end of next year. We believe in this project because it strenghtens the very meaning of Rotaract, which is Rotary and Action. Every one of you can help gather accessibility details. It’s easy but you have to be willing to put your very effort in it, considering all the details and doing things properly.

MapAbility is about team work, and Rotaract is about creating great teams and making great projects…together!”